


Eyes Closed

by Moreena



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Alcohol, Angst and Feels, Character Death, Feelings, Friends With Benefits, Heavy Angst, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sex, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 13:07:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11647179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moreena/pseuds/Moreena
Summary: In the wake of loss, Quatre tries to cope.  It's easier to pretend with his eyes closed.





	Eyes Closed

**Author's Note:**

> Saw all the Halsey stuff from other GW tumblr peeps. Got the album, got inspired. Here, have ANGST!!! Inspired by Eyes Closed by Halsey
> 
> Super HUGE thank yous to Hatari on Tumblr for the beta!!! (This fic is vastly improved by her catching my technical goofs, and fixing common grammar my sleep deprived brain couldn't grasp).

As he rolled over, he dropped his arm to the other side of the bed. He’d been in a state of consciousness for several minutes, analyzing his surroundings, as he always did. He’d known he was alone before he’d rolled over. Still, when his arm touched down to sheets as cold as ice, the rejection hurt. It ached deep in his bones. A full body pain that would never go away, would only flare up every time it rained or got cold.

 

Being left alone wasn’t supposed to hurt this much, but it did. He should’ve become used to it these past few months. Each time though, it was like picking at a scab. It bled, healed over, and you picked at it again so that it wouldn’t heal. You enjoyed the pain of pulling the scab off. Thrilled at the sting of fresh blood welling to the surface until it slowed then stopped. Quatre had been doing nothing but picking at himself in the months following Trowa’s death.

 

They weren’t partners, or lovers, in a technical sense. It was a relationship that was both closer than that and further apart. Trowa wasn’t ready to settle down, and Quatre couldn’t fault him for that. Instead, Quatre offered him a bed when he was in town. For a few days, a few weeks, whatever Trowa needed. They’d fuck, and when it came time for Trowa to go, he’d leave with no hard feelings. Close friends with benefits. No drama, nothing messy. Or, that was what they’d said. Quatre knew he’d had deeper feelings for the other man, but he kept them tamped down, locked into the furthest recesses of his mind so he wouldn’t push Trowa past his comfort zone. He’d told himself he’d be all right with having Trowa in a physical sense. He could hold his heart back. Eventually, one day, Trowa would be his.

 

That was what he’d told himself, every time Trowa told him he was coming to town. He held his feelings back, though Trowa knew body language, knew Quatre just as well as himself. They all knew each other in ways no one else ever would. Trowa probably knew of his feelings, but he chose not to comment. He wanted Quatre to tell him on his own. They never pushed past physical and treaded the waters of emotions. They didn’t want to cloud their time together, or ruin what they had. Quatre feared that if he tried to make Trowa stay, that Trowa would leave and never come back. Trowa didn’t want to rush himself, didn’t want to jump into something before he was ready, and risk hurting the blonde, who’d taken care of him and helped show him things.

 

None of that mattered now, to either… To any of them.

 

The call had come in for Quatre at 4AM. He’d been asleep, but his phone had sounded loud in the silence of his room. No one from WEI called at that hour, so it was bad. Blearily, he snatched the phone up and answered it without looking at the caller id.

 

“Quatre… Oh god, Quatre.”

 

The voice was sobbing, wrecked with emotion. Even through the tears, Quatre could tell it was Cathy. He’d recognize the cadence of her voice from numerous phone calls, from in person meetings. 

“Cathy…?” Quatre asked, fully awake, despair and dread clutching at his chest like a cinderblock weighing him down in water.

 

“It’s Trowa. There was a car accident. Cathy’s voice trailed off into incoherent sobbing.

 

Quatre’s cell phone dropped from his nerveless fingers to the bed. The call remained connected, and Quatre knew his wailing rivaled Cathy’s. Together, they cried for someone they’d both loved, and had lost. Cathy cried for the brother she’d lost. The last of her blood family. Quatre cried for the man he’d never worked up the courage to confess to, who’d never know the real depth of his feelings. A love he’d never know.

 

-

 

The doctors called it. Thanatophobia. A sudden fear of death, brought on by the sudden passing of a close friend. They said there wasn’t much they could do for him, if he refused to talk. There wasn’t a magical pill that could fix him. Quatre had to work through his feelings, and since the shock had settled over him like a thick winter blanket, he couldn’t shake it. Couldn’t find it inside himself to open his mouth and let words out that related to himself. Did it matter if he spoke about how he felt? It hadn’t mattered that he’d never told Trowa, and now Trowa was dead.

 

Quatre worked from home. Ran WEI from the office of his apartment. Had groceries delivered by a service. He became a hermit, afraid of going outside for anything. Even though he knew there was a chance he could die at any time, he felt safer, surrounded by the walls of his apartment. Cocooned in the memories of his times with Trowa. It comforted him to stay here. He’d gone to the funeral with the others. Had held Cathy up when emotion had her shaking and weak as she walked behind the casket. Duo, Wufei, Heero, and Une had taken up the responsibility of carrying their fallen friend. He watched it all with a bitter sense of detachment…

 

As they’d lowered him into the ground. The words were hollow, and none of them believed in what was being said. War hadn’t taken his life. An undercover mission for the good of saving the world hadn’t taken his life. No, it had been a man, being reckless for driving drunk. Trowa was dead, and the drunk had walked away with a broken arm and a broken leg. The accident had spared the man, but Quatre hadn’t. With influence and money came power, and sometimes he used the power he had for less savory causes. Quatre had forced the state to prosecute, seeking the highest penalty, to make an example of him. Then Quatre had stonewalled every lawyer he could find that considered taking the case on. (He’d had help from the prosecutor’s office on that one.) The only lawyer the guy could get was the pro-bono one from the state, who struggled under too many cases, and not enough caring.

 

He’d gotten life. Without the possibility of parole. Quatre and the rest had wanted to kill him instead of suffering through a lengthy trial. Cathy had been the one to convince them all that this was better. He’d spend every day of the rest of his miserable life thinking about Trowa, what he’d done. The faces of grieving friends and family of the man he’d killed with the abhorrent decision to drink and drive. That was a crueler punishment than a swift death.

 

-

 

It happened the night after the guilty verdict had come down. None of the boys or Cathy had missed a day of the trial. That night, they’d gone out for a drink, toasting in Trowa’s memory. Quatre had one too many, and was falling asleep at the table from exhaustion and emotional stress. Cathy and the others were just getting going though. It was Duo who took him home, letting Quatre lean on him as they walked down the hall to Quatre’s apartment door. Duo helped him inside, stripped him down to his boxers and got him settled into bed. Quatre couldn’t remember what had led it to happen, but Duo had tumbled into bed with him, and they had sex. Maybe it had been the empty feeling in the pit of his chest, combined with Duo being a little tipsy. Maybe Quatre just didn’t want to be alone for a brief time.

 

Quatre kept his eyes closed, too frightened that if he opened them, he’d see Trowa’s face attached to Duo’s body. If he kept his eyes screwed shut tightly, he could actually imagine it was Trowa on top of him, pinning him down with large hands. Driving into him with wild abandon until they were both screaming out in pure pleasure. The last thing he remembered was a warm hand cupping his cheek before he fell into sleep, exhaustion finally taking its toll on him.

He could’ve passed everything off with Duo as a dream. But, waking up with his body aching from activities he hadn’t done in weeks, and a hangover from two strong drinks… There was a hickey on his chest, right above his heart, and that couldn’t be explained away. No, he wouldn’t forget that he and Duo had slept together, even if the braided man was long gone.

 

-

 

Heero came to visit him just after his self-imposed seclusion, after the trial. Iria had tried to reason with him, to get him to talk to someone. Quatre had blatantly refused before he’d thrown her out of his apartment and locked the door, to drive home the point that he was finished with the conversation. Heero had shown up three days later. He’d knocked first, to be polite. Quatre had grudgingly let him in, because if he hadn’t, Heero would have merely stood in the hallway until one of his neighbors called him to complain, or Heero would have just picked the locks and allowed himself inside.

 

Quatre was grateful that Heero didn’t comment that he looked like shit. He was showered and in clothes, but his hair was a wreck, and his eyes were bloodshot, and he had bags big enough to block the Hoover Dam under his eyes. He was a bit twitchy, but fairly normal, given his precarious emotional state. Heero held up take out and a case of beer, and Quatre jerked his head towards the living room, where the TV was playing some show about sharks, with a single small table lamp as the only other source of light. They ate and drank in silence, Quatre knowing Heero was here to commiserate in silence about how lost they both were. After Quatre, Heero had been Trowa’s best friend, and Trowa had been… Trowa had been Heero’s closest confidant. While the others felt the loss, Heero, Quatre, and Cathy felt it on another level, because they’d been Trowa’s inner circle.

 

Since he was working from home, Quatre didn’t have a set schedule. Maybe it was seeing Heero for the first time since the sentencing. Maybe it was the fact that Quatre had loosened up a little, as far as alcohol went, that had him going further than his usual two drinks. When one had ample time on their hands, one tended to imbibe more. Quatre was pushing that state of buzzed into drunk territory, when Heero helped him to his bedroom. Neither one of them would say who’d been the one to initiate, but it had happened. Heero wound up in bed with Quatre, taking him gently, fucking into him with slow, steady thrusts. Like he was afraid of being too rough, that Quatre would shatter underneath him if he wasn’t too careful.

 

His only reminder of having been with Heero were the left over takeout containers stuffed into the fridge, and that tell-tale twinge in his lower back and hips. Strained from being canted up at the perfect angle for what had to have been hours, with Heero’s impressive stamina. Quatre had kept his eyes closed with Heero too, his face buried in the curve of the brunette’s neck, inhaling his spicy scent as Heero had slowly thrusted into him.

 

-

 

Wufei’s trip had been less remarkable. He’d shown up out of the blue, knocking on his door in his usual perfunctory manner. Quatre had been expecting him, this time. It was a business call, more than a social call. His fellow pilot was dropping off a couple of files that Une wanted Quatre to consult on. He didn’t know what good he’d be, doing it from home, but he’d humor them. They’d settled down in the living room with tea, talking quietly about little things. He couldn’t blame this time on the alcohol. No, he was stone sober when he and Wufei wound up in his bed. The same bed he’d slept in with every single one of his fellow pilots now.

 

Wufei was gentle, reverent. Held and caressed every inch of his body as they rocked together. It was slow and careful. Everything he missed, even though it wasn’t exactly the same. It wasn’t the same body, the exact same angle, or meeting of skin. He left small marks that Quatre wouldn’t have a problem hiding, even as Quatre hid his face in the length of Wufei’s hair, breathing hard, trying to give himself over to the moment, even if he couldn’t release his emotions. His stamina was almost as impressive as Heero’s, and he drifted into sleep with Wufei’s fingers carding through his hair, blunt nails scratching gently at his scalp.

 

In the morning, he shuffled sleepily through his apartment, hiding a yawn behind his hand. His upper body was peppered in small hickies, and the only other sign of Wufei’s visit were the used tea cups in the sink, filled with water to soak.

 

-

 

One of them had stolen his key and made copies for them. Some nights, Quatre would be immersed with work and wouldn’t answer the door. But, they’d show up, letting themselves in. Never the same day, never the same time. Sometimes he’d see Heero twice, before he saw Duo or Wufei. It was like the three of them had unspoken rules. Needs that they thought only Quatre could fulfill. 

 

Was it the clutch of his body? Was it the way he mewled and cried underneath them when they used his body? He didn’t know what drew them back time and time again. Every time he slept with one of them, he kept his eyes closed. If he clenched them shut, he could imagine each facet of Trowa as they took him, flooded his body with pleasure until he came, eyes flying open in the last moment, shattering the illusion.

 

Duo fucked him like a man chasing his own demons. Like he could escape from everything. He was the easiest to pretend with. He like Quatre on his knees, face pressed to the side of the pillow, wrists held behind his back with one of Duo’s hands. If Quatre closed his eyes, it was just like when Trowa was having a rough day, and needed to use him, to get off quick to release tension. He was always sore afterwards, and his neck would look like it had been mauled by a dog, viciously bruised and tender to the touch. Quatre could feel it all, and Trowa’s image was easy to conjure up, as long as Duo didn’t talk and shatter his fantasy.

 

Heero was benevolent. Like he was frightened that Quatre’s already fractured heart would shatter into a fine dust if he was too brazen. It was gentle love-making, the kind that would have included candles and flower petals all over the bed. It was sweet and slow, and lasted for hours. Heero propped pillows under his hips to take the strain off his back, kissing Quatre with a reserved passion. Quatre kept his eyes closed, his head tipped back as he emitted little cries, tears threatening to spill from behind his lashes. It was sweet, too emotional. Like when Trowa wanted to take his time, and take Quatre apart until he was nothing more than a puddle of nerves that held mass on the bed. Heero’s strength as he held him in position screamed ‘Trowa’ to his brain. If Heero didn’t talk until after, when they curled together to bask in the afterglow, then it was perfect.

 

Wufei worshiped him. There wasn’t an inch of his body that he didn’t touch or kiss as he carefully took Quatre’s body to new heights. He wasn’t as gentle as Heero, since he didn’t have that insane strength to worry about. It was more playful, sometimes they rolled around on the bed in mock fights for dominance. It was harder to close his eyes when he wound up on top, rocking his body against Wufei’s, slowly fucking them both to orgasm. If he tipped his head, and arched his back for a better angle, he could get away with keeping his eyes closed. Wufei was the hardest to sleep with, because his hands touched every sensitive spot, that only Trowa had taken the time to learn before the other pilots. And, Wufei’s playful reverence was too much like Trowa, too akin to how their couplings usually were. 

 

If Quatre cried himself to sleep after they each left, it was his business. They were too much like Trowa, and too far apart. It would’ve been easier if any of them stayed the night, but they always left. It was a quiet, simple rejection that told him that he wasn’t number one for any of them. They never stayed, and Quatre couldn’t ask. He didn’t want someone else to fall so close into his life that their inevitable death would spiral him even more than Trowa’s had. 

 

He could live with this. It was what he deserved. Chasing Trowa’s ghost while he eked out some semblance a life.

**Author's Note:**

> [My Tumblr](http://moonsandrock.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [My Gundam Tumblr](http://weiclown.tumblr.com/)


End file.
